ALL OUR PRETTY SONGS

Nirvana, which first broke out in the UK, continues to be the band to measure other bands against. Much is written about Kurt and much abuse has been piled on Courtney, but the story of their unique and cataclysmic marriage has never been given the attention it deserves. A couple of discarded kids who connected as rockers and rebels, Kurt and Courtney's remarkably brief collision in cultural time and space became the nuclear event that ignited this gritty punk offshoot called grungeas well as the thing that burned it to the ground. In some ways, their very public, tragic, controversial, chaotic doom also spelled the end of rock and roll as we knew it.

But for a time they were Kurt and Courtney, two lost souls whose union created a sound and a sensibility (Nirvana and Hole, respectively) that captured fans worldwide and defined the alternative zeitgeist of the 1990s. On a larger scale, they became pop culture icons who broke the mold and who have been revered, reviled, emulated, caricatured, and mythologized for decades.

Now, in ALL OUR PRETTY SONGS, veteran magazine journalist and editor Mike Guy will examine this fascinating and wildly misunderstood relationship from both sides. So much that has been written about 90s rock and the grunge scene has been through the lens of the "bros" and in their narrative this particular union has been portrayed as nothing more than a twisted plot point in the story of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, with Love almost always painted as the villain. While Courtney Love is often her own worst enemy when it comes to the writing of the story of the 90's, ALL OUR PRETTY SONGS will reveal both her iconic place in history and a marriage that was very much between two equals. And for all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that marked their young lives, Guy will also illuminate a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, and a creative alliance that yielded the insanely brilliant musical output that changed rock forever.

Drawing on unique access and sources, Guy has already conducted interviews with members of the Cobain/Love inner circle, who've revealed secrets never heard before, or never on record, and have provided surprising new details and insights into the marriage. And Guy's just getting started. Even the most devoted and knowledgeable Cobain/Nirvana fans will come away enlightened by the revelations that will emerge from this thoughtful, thorough reexamination.

At its core, ALL OUR PRETTY SONGS tells a rare love story that will appeal to music fans, men and women alike. Fans love music and celebrity couples. We are living in the age of Taylor and Travis. We recently saw the attention that Hulu's limited series "Pam and Tommy" received. People are still riveted by the enigmatic relationship between John Lennon and Yoko Ono (which was notably recast in Peter Jackson's 2021 documentary about the Beatles). Moreover, we are entering a period of what critics are calling "The Nirvanaissance" the band's popularity is enjoying a revival as millennials discover the music and wear the merch. Dave Grohl's memoir rocketed to the top of the NYT list and stayed there. And the fact of the matter is no book has looked anew at Nirvana, its place in music history, and its legacy in a big way since Michael Azerrad's classic Come As You Are and Charles Cross's Heavier Than Heaven, both of which were first published in the raw aftermath of Kurt's death some 25 years ago. As Mike Guy puts it, it's a bit like reading a definitive book about JFK's assassination that was written in 1963.

ALL OUR PRETTY SONGS, which reads like a ticking time bomb, will take us behind the curtain into this gritty world of megastardom and marital devotion. It will be provocative, balanced, revelatory, and rich with intimate detail, and will forever change the way we think of this unorthodox Romeo and Juliet, "with their torn jeans, hair dyed pink with Kool-Aid, and heads full of hooks, melodies, and heroin."

Mike Guy is a veteran journalist, editor, and former professional musician, whose journalism career began at Rolling Stone, where he was Hunter S. Thompson's assistant, P.J. O'Rourke's reporter, and worked on stories that would become best-sellers, including Fast Food Nation and Eat The Rich. A longtime contributor to Details, Playboy, GQ, and other publications, his work has been nominated for a National Magazine Award and anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing series. Most recently he was the Editor-in-Chief of Road & Track.